


Transaction Fee

by NellieOleson



Category: Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 18:31:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13347036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: Clothes-stealing, chicken-loving Unas cowboys. And a fish.





	Transaction Fee

**Author's Note:**

> This is really old and not very good but annerbhp wanted me to post it for her. So.

  


The wormhole snapped shut and the four teammates automatically fanned out from the stairs and began scanning the surrounding terrain. They were on a follow-up mission to P3X-919. SG-6 had already established contact with the inhabitants, but severe language barriers had stalled their efforts at meaningful conversation. Daniel thought they might be distant relatives of the Unas, and hoped he might be able to communicate with them. In any event, it was a pretty planet and SG-6 hadn’t run into any sort of hostility from the locals. It would be a nice break from all the crappy planets with unfriendly people that they had been to recently.

 Jack paused as something moving in the distance caught his attention. What the-? “Hey, Carter?”

“Sir?” Carter was checking out the DHD. Even though SG-6 had come back without incident, she had a habit of ensuring that it was functional whenever they arrived on a planet. They’d been burned one too many times by the old non-functioning DHD scenario.

“What the hell is that?” There was really no reason for Carter to know what the thing was, but he liked to listen to her theorize about stuff.

She followed his gaze to the large hairy animal that was lumbering towards them. “I have no idea, sir. But it kind of looks like….”

“Snuffleupagus?”

“Well, I was going to say a small woolly mammoth, sir. But, yeah, it does look like Snuffleupagus.” She was totally thinking Snuffleupagus; he could see it on her face.

Whatever it was, it was heading straight for them. “Should I shoot it?” Jack didn’t like the idea of murdering Snuffleupagus, but hey, this wasn’t exactly Sesame Street.

Daniel looked alarmed. “Jack, you can’t shoot Snuffleupagus. What if it’s some sort of sacred animal?” Jack thought Daniel might be exaggerating about the whole sacred thing.  Daniel was always trying to discourage him from shooting things. Or blowing them up.

“Oh, come on, Daniel, the only way that thing would get to be sacred is if this planet were populated by Big Birds.” And it wasn’t. SG-6 hadn’t mentioned Big Birds anywhere in their report. He was sure he would have remembered that.

Teal’c had raised his staff weapon. “O’Neill. The creature is getting closer. Should we not take up a defensive position?” Jack got the impression that Teal’c would have used the same tone while explaining something to a child. He could almost see the bubble over Teal’c’s head that said,  ‘Surely, these three would have been killed years ago had I not joined them.’ And he was right - if they waited too long, they might not be able to outrun the thing if it decided to trample them. Or eat them.

“Daniel?” Daniel was still watching it approach, wearing his isn’t-this-just-the-most-fascinating-thing-ever expression.

“Hold on, Jack. It doesn’t look dangerous.” It really didn’t. Despite its size, it seemed relatively docile. It had paused about ten meters away and was trying to catch their scent with its extended trunk.

“Yeah, well, neither did the Tribbles. And we all know how that turned out.”

“I do not, O’Neill.” Teal’c thought, perhaps, that they were like Ewoks. Those small furry creatures had certainly proved to be more formidable than they had appeared.

Carter made a pitiful attempt to stifle a laugh and Jack glared at her.

“Another time, Teal’c.” Five years. How the hell could anyone live on Earth for five years and not know what a Tribble was?

By now, Daniel had begun to approach the creature with his arm outstretched in the universal greeting of ‘please don’t kill me’ often used with strange animals.

“Shit. Carter, Teal’c, get ready to shoot that thing if it tries to eat Daniel.” If it did want to eat Daniel, Jack thought he might let it take a toe or two before shooting it, just to prove a point.

The three of them raised their weapons, prepared to take the animal down if it showed any signs of aggression. They watched as it approached Daniel, comically mimicking his outstretched hand with its trunk. It sniffed tentatively at Daniel’s hand, and then moved closer. It was playfully examining his hat when he turned toward the rest of the group.

“See, Jack, not everything needs to be shot,” Daniel called to him, making no attempt to disguise the ‘I told you so’ in his voice.

“Yes, Daniel. I’m glad you got your Kodak moment in. Can we go find the-”

Carter interrupted him with a warning shout. “Daniel, look out!”

If Daniel had just run away, things might have gone better. Instead, he turned to see what had gone wrong.  He got a brief glimpse of the underside of its belly as it lifted a hind leg.

And peed on him.

Jack grimaced. “Oh, that’s just wrong. Are you sure you don’t want me to shoot it, Daniel?” He wanted to add something helpful to that, but didn’t. “I knew we should have brought the HAZMAT suits.”

Daniel turned back toward them, trying to pull his urine-soaked shirt away from his body. “Very funny, Jack. Some help would be nice.” The creature had begun sniffing him again, and seemed to be pleased with his new urine-scent. Daniel walked towards Carter, who was doubled over laughing at him. “I expected more from you, Sam.”

“I’m sorry, Daniel. But Snuffleupagus just peed on you.” Saying it out loud spawned a new round of laughter, and Daniel made a mental note to remove her from his will.

He began removing his wet –and disturbingly warm- clothes while everyone else pretended to not be laughing at him. He was calculating the joke mileage they would get from this particular incident when a group of humanoids came into view. As they made their way closer, Daniel could see that they did resemble the Unas. They were smaller, less aggressive looking, but there was definitely a resemblance.

As they drew nearer, one of them broke from the group and approached the animal. He uttered some guttural-sounding words and slapped it on its flank. The Snuffleupagus made a final swish with its trunk and ambled off into the tree line.

A short time, and several confused gestures later, they were being led into a nearby settlement. Daniel was making a valiant effort to look everywhere at once, trying to gain some insight into their culture by examining their shelters. “It looks like they might be nomadic,” he observed. “These structures don’t look permanent.” The buildings looked like a cross between a tent and an upscale shack, made of modular wall panels and topped with some sort of fabric.

“Maybe they follow herds of Snuffleupagus around,” suggested Sam.

She might have meant that as a joke, but Daniel thought that was exactly what they might be doing. “The one we saw did seem to be domesticated; maybe they’re like cattle.”

Teal’c added a speculative eyebrow to the conversation.

“So, what, Unas cowboys?” Surely there was a joke in there somewhere, thought Jack. Sadly, the Unas cowboy jokes failed to materialize, so he moved on to something easier. “Daniel?”

“Yes, Jack?”

“You stink.”

“A large, hairy animal peed on me, Jack. What did you expect?”  He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

“I’m just saying. You stink.”

“Indeed.”  Teal’c gave Daniel a sideways glance and moved away from him a bit.

Before Daniel could reply, one of the sort-of-Unas stopped them and gestured toward a large shelter.

Daniel copied the gesture and the Unas seemed pleased. “Inside,” Daniel added as he repeated the gesture again. The Unas grunted something and Jack wondered how in hell Daniel was ever going to make sense of their language. Daniel, of course, grunted right back to him, seeming rather pleased with himself.

After a brief grunt-fest with some wild gesticulation thrown in for good measure, they all made their way inside. The floor was covered with thick woven rugs, and the Unas sat down on them, motioning for them to do the same. Daniel jumped right in and began trying out his limited Unas vocabulary to see if their language had any similarities to the one Chaka had spoken. The non-linguistic portion of their group sat in a corner to watch Daniel in action.

Jack lost interest in about two seconds and began to pester Carter and Teal’c. “So, do you think they realize Daniel got peed on? I would hate for them to think humans just smelled like that.”

Teal’c ignored him, and Carter just shook her head, neither of them wanting to get sucked into one of Jack’s discussions born of boredom. It wasn’t easy; he had the persistence of a three-year-old. “Come on, you’re not worried at all? We do have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

“I don’t think our smell has any bearing on our reputation, sir.” Why, why, why did she always feel the need to respond when he was obviously baiting them?  

“Well, it didn’t. Who knows what kind of damage this could do?”

“I do not believe our reputations as warriors will be damaged by Daniel Jackson’s unpleasant smell, O’Neill.”

Jack smirked to himself. It wasn’t often he managed to get Teal’c trapped in a pointless conversation. Carter was easy, she just couldn’t seem to stop herself, but Teal’c was usually better at ignoring him. His internal victory dance was cut short by some commotion from Daniel’s area.

Daniel was examining an intricate stone carving of what looked like a fish, and one of the Unas was doing some important sounding grunting. Daniel was trying to get him to slow down, and seemed to have no idea what he was saying. The Unas stopped and pointed at Carter. Daniel copied him. “Sam,” he clarified. He tried to hand the Unas the carving, but the Unas refused, and pointed at Sam again.

Carter stood up and looked uncertainly at him. “Sir?” She didn’t like being the center of attention, and her finger was twitching on the trigger of her P-90.

Jack stood up and looked pointedly at Daniel. “Daniel?” Jack didn’t like the attention being directed at Carter anymore than she did. And unwanted attention directed at Carter happened far too often, as far as he was concerned.

Teal’c remained seated, but he did put on his scary Jaffa face.  

Daniel held the carved fish and pointed at Carter again. “Do you want Sam to have it?” He got up and tried to give the fish to Carter, but the Unas stopped him, taking Daniel’s hand and closing it around the fish. Daniel just shook his head. Two of the others moved toward Carter and went to take her by the arms. Teal’c got to his feet and placed himself in front of her, still glaring for all he was worth. Carter looked around Teal’c, and Jack thought she might be sizing the two Unas up to see which one she should take out first.

The two would be Carter-snatchers looked confused and uncertain. Teal’c had them effectively blocked with his staff weapon, and Jack had his P-90 trained on them. They turned to look back at the Unas that had given Daniel the fish. He in turn looked at Daniel, saying something and pointing at the fish and then back at Carter.

Jack was quickly losing his patience with the whole situation. “What the hell is going on, Daniel? If they try to touch Carter again, I’m shooting them.” And he would. Interplanetary relations be damned, there was no way he was letting those two near Carter.

“Uh-oh.” Daniel had been doing some mental backtracking, and thought he had figured out what had happened.

That didn’t sound good. Carter was beginning to look supremely pissed and Jack wondered if he would even get the chance to shoot the Unas. She might just kick their asses before he could get a clear shot. “Uh-oh what, Daniel? What the hell did you say to them?”

Jack wasn’t going to like this. It was a nice fish, but still, Jack was definitely going to be mad. “I think I just traded Sam for this fish.” He gave Sam an apologetic smile, and hoped she didn’t kill him when they got back to the SGC.

Shit. Not again. “Fix it, Daniel.” Always Carter, he thought. Just once, he’d like to see the freaky aliens infatuated with Teal’c.

Daniel looked at him, clearly exasperated. “I’m trying, this is their leader. He can’t just give her back. It would make him look bad.”  This wasn’t good. Jack was well aware of the extremes leaders would go to in order to save face. There was no reason to think the Unas would be any different.

“Well, tell him that being dead is going to make him look worse.”  The leader was looking at him, and Jack thought he might have gotten the gist of his exchange with Daniel. He looked scared.

“I don’t think they’re going to hurt her, Jack. Let me try to work this out before you go shooting everyone.” He thought they might want Sam as some sort of a pet, but figured it would be best not to mention that.

Jack glared at the two Unas standing near Carter. They didn’t look angry at all, they seemed almost nervous and kept looking to their leader for guidance. They also looked unarmed and he knew that if they were as unarmed as they looked, Carter could handle them herself. Maybe he should let Daniel try to be diplomatic. But, really there was only one person who could make that call. “Carter?”

“Yes, sir?” She looked slightly less pissed, and he was mildly disappointed at that. She was awfully sexy when she got mad.

“Do you want me to shoot them?”

She gave this some thought as Daniel continued to talk with the Unas. Overall, they had seemed like a peaceful society, and she didn’t like the idea of killing them over a misunderstanding. She also had a lot of faith in Daniel’s mediating skills; she had seen him talk his way out of much worse situations. “I’ll be fine, sir. Let Daniel try to renegotiate with them for a while. If that doesn’t work, I’ll shoot them myself.”

Daniel talked with the leader some more. “Uh, Jack, they want to take her take her to a different location while we work out a new trade agreement.”

Jack had no intention of letting Carter out of his sight. He was about to voice his protest, but Carter spoke first, anticipating his impending outburst.

“I’ll be fine, sir. Let Daniel do his job.” She looked at him in a way that made him forget about the others in the room, and her next words were entirely for his benefit. “Really, I’ll be fine.” She held his gaze for a moment longer, and then she spoke to Daniel. “Tell them I’ll go with them.”

Jack reached out and grabbed her arm, questioning her decision with his eyes. She gave him a quick smile and he released her, offering her the first bit of advice that popped into his mind. “Stay in radio contact, and if they try to take your weapon, start shooting.”

“Yes, sir.” She was amused now, he may as well have told her to look both ways before crossing the street.

“Teal’c, you go with them.” A little insurance couldn’t hurt.

Teal’c gave him a little Jaffa bow and followed them out.

“You’ve got thirty minutes, Daniel.”

Jack paced. He wasn’t sure if he could make it to thirty minutes. If anything happened to Carter, he was going to kill Daniel. Surely, Hammond would understand. His fingers tapped impatiently on his weapon. At least Teal’c was with her. He sat down. He looked at his watch. Four and a half minutes had passed. Daniel better hurry the hell up. He stood up and began to pace again.

Daniel opened his rucksack and began to look for something the Unas might find more valuable than Sam.

Jack walked to the door and looked around the camp. He was checking his watch again when Carter’s voice squawked out of his radio.

“Sir?”

“Go ahead, Carter.” He hoped he had managed to keep the relief in his voice down to a professional level. He might still kill Daniel for making him worry so damn much.

“They’ve taken me to a building on the far side of the camp. It seems to be a gathering place for the females of the tribe. At least, I think they’re female. It’s kind of hard to tell, sir.”

Well, that didn’t sound so bad; maybe they would still be able to leave the planet on good terms. “Is Teal’c still with you?”

“Yes, sir. He’s standing outside.”

Good. He had been worried that they would object to Teal’c’s presence. “Be glad you got out of here when you did, Carter. It’s starting to smell like Daniel in here.”

“Yes, sir. Carter out.” He could hear the amusement in her voice, and the urge to kill Daniel subsided. A little.

He paced for another ten minutes before Daniel jumped up. “I think we’ve made a deal, Jack.”

“Really? What did you have to give up?” He had gone back to thinking that they would have to fight their way out. Really, what could Daniel possibly have in his rucksack that was better than Carter?

Daniel shuffled his feet and seemed reluctant to answer. “Yeah, about that. You may not want to tell Sam.”   

Daniel’s answer piqued Jack’s curiosity and he walked closer. The Unas had huddled around their leader, obviously impressed with whatever Daniel had given him. He peeked through a gap.

Huh. “Daniel?”

“Jack?”

“Why do you carry a rubber chicken off-world?” The Unas were passing the chicken around, looking at it reverently. One of them stretched the chicken’s neck, causing a ripple of awe to run through the group.

“For situations like this?” He didn’t always carry the chicken off-world. It was sort of a game between him and Sam. They took turns hiding the chicken where the other one would find it, hopefully creating an awkward situation. Much like this. They were lucky Sam had left the chicken rolled up inside a pair of his spare socks.

“Right. We’ll talk more about this later. Let’s go.” And people thought he was nuts.

The proud new owner of the rubber chicken led them out the door, and through the camp. They stopped about fifteen yards from a large building, and Jack was relieved to see Teal’c standing beside it. There was some grunting and two of the Unas ran ahead and went into the building.

Jack wasn’t pleased with the delay. He just wanted to get Carter back and get the hell out of there. “What’s going on, Daniel?”

“I’m not sure. I think he wants to get all of the females out before he lets us in.” Which was a good thing, Daniel thought. He really had no urge to see half-naked Unas females running around.

That seemed fair enough to Jack also. He decided to call Carter on the radio to let her know they were coming to rescue her.

“Carter?” He waited impatiently for her to answer. There was no reply. “Carter?” Still nothing.  He started to walk toward the building, signaling for Teal’c to get in there and find out what the hell was going on. Before Teal’c could get through the door, it opened, and a group of what he supposed were women walked out.

“Daniel. Is it my imagination, or were those women carrying Carter’s uniform?” Yup, that definitely looked like Carter’s uniform. Not a good sign. At least not here. Normally, Jack liked the idea of Carter out of uniform, but not when they were surrounded by chicken-loving Unas cowboys.

The two of them ran the rest of the way. Teal’c had forced his way in as the last of the Unas exited. They burst through the door and promptly skidded to a halt next to Teal’c.

The three of them stood for a long moment, transfixed by what they found in the room. Jack knew his mouth was hanging open, and he was sure if he could pull his eyes away from Carter long enough to look at Daniel, he would see the same expression there. Teal’c was a wild card. There was no telling what he would see on his face. Thinking of the two of them staring at Carter was unpleasant enough to pull him out of his stupor.

“Well, that’s just….”

“Hot?” offered Daniel.

“Yeah.” Shit. “I mean no, Daniel. It’s wrong.” And yet, hot in its wrongness. “And quit staring at her.” This last bit was yelled a little louder than he had intended.

“Sir?” Carter’s voice was groggy, and Jack regretted yelling loud enough to wake her. This was going to get ugly quick.

She was lying on a low table with her arms shackled to the wall above her head.

Naked, of course.

They all had the good sense to turn their backs on her.

“Oh. My. God. What the hell is going on?” Sam frantically sifted through her short-term memory, the last thing she could recall was sharing a meal with the women. They had seemed so nice, even though she had no idea what they were saying to her. They must have drugged her. And taken her clothes. And chained her to the wall. She couldn’t think of a good reason for this, or a bad one for that matter.

“O’Neill?”

“Yeah?” He hoped Teal’c didn’t ask him anything important; he was having a really hard time thinking.

“Should we not release Major Carter?”

Yeah, there was that.

“Yes, would somebody please get me the hell out of here?” Sam was having a hard time deciding between anger and embarrassment. Right now, the anger was winning, but not by much.

Jack was sure he could actually feel the color draining from his face. “Right. Daniel, go get Carter down.”

“Me?” Daniel actually squeaked. “No way, Jack. You go get her.”

Not for the first time, Jack regretted that Daniel was a civilian and wouldn’t just do what he was told. “Daniel, she’s naked. You get her.” No way in hell he was going to unchain a naked Carter. Nope. Nope. Nope.

“I can’t believe this.” They had to pick now to argue like eight year olds. She was putting in for a transfer the second they got back. “Somebody get me down.” And now, the anger had the embarrassment on the mat and was stomping the life out of it.

“I will do it,” Teal’c volunteered. Stoically.

Thank God for Teal’c, Jack thought.  He listened to Teal’c messing with Carter’s restraints trying equally hard to look and to not look. He heard the chains drop and breathed a sigh of relief. Home free. Just a quick walk to the gate, get Daniel’s smelly ass to a shower, and all would be well.

“Some clothes would be nice.”  Right. There was that too.  Jack thought she sounded amused now, and that scared him more than the pissed off Carter had.

He looked at Daniel.

“Sorry, Jack. I don’t think Carter wants to wear my clothes. I stink, remember?”  Daniel had finally found the silver lining in the getting-peed-on-by-a large-hairy-animal cloud.

“Teal’c?” Jack asked hopefully.

“I believe I have done my part, O’Neill.” Although Teal’c’s face remained impassive, Jack got the distinct impression that he was mocking him.

“Oh, all right. The things I do for you people.” He began taking off his clothes. This was so not how he had pictured getting naked with Carter. “Damn clothes-stealing Unas cowboys”, he muttered to himself as he removed his pants. Carter’s snort interrupted his ranting. Was she laughing at him? So unfair.

“Uh, Jack?”

“What now, Daniel?” he snapped. Getting laughed at by Carter while removing his pants hadn’t done much to improve his mood.

“You’re wearing a thong?”

What? Fuck. “Laundry day, Daniel.” Of course today would be the day he wound up half naked off-world. He was never going to hear the end of this -Carter was having an uncontrolled laughing fit behind his back- from either of them. He threw his pants at her. He was about to throw his BDU top as well, but changed his mind and tossed her his t-shirt instead. He took his top and tied it around his waist. He was going to cover his ass with it, but he figured that his body would betray him every time he thought of naked, chained-to-the-wall Carter. Which he would surely do non-stop for the rest of his life. So, he tied the shirt with his ass hanging out the back. He figured he could always just stay behind the rest of them.

  


****

 

“Why do you think they took Carter’s clothes, Daniel?” They had been walking back to the gate in silence, and Daniel was surprised that Jack was the first one to say something.

“I’m not really sure. Transaction fee, maybe?” He had tried to get Carter’s clothes back before they left, but had been unsuccessful. Jack hadn’t been willing to wait around to let him haggle with the Unas, so they had left confused, but on seemingly good terms. Which was weird, considering that they had kidnapped Sam, drugged her, stolen her clothes and left her chained to a wall. He really loved this job. You just never knew what was going to happen.

“Transaction fee? That’s the best you can do?” He was really hoping Daniel had an answer; the whole situation had left him very confused.

“It’s all I’ve got, Jack.” Daniel was glad to see the DHD, he had no idea what the clothes stealing had been about. And at this point, he didn’t really care either. He just wanted to be clean again.

“Dial it up, Carter.” Jack watched her push buttons, secretly pleased that she was wearing his clothes. The wormhole sprang into existence, and Teal’c and Daniel headed up the stairs. Jack waited for them to step through, and then he turned to Carter.

“So, Carter. I just wanted to get something straight. For my report.”

“What’s that, sir?” She wasn’t really sure she wanted to hear what he had to say. But he didn’t have a shirt on, so really, she had to pay attention to him.

“You were hanging out with a bunch of women, and you woke up naked on a bed, chained to a wall?” Oh yeah, that line of thought was going to keep him entertained for weeks. Years maybe.

“Funny, sir.”  He was such an idiot sometimes. What the hell did she see in him?

“I just want to make sure I have all the facts right.” He stated with as much wide-eyed innocence as he could muster.

“Right, sir. For your report.”  She was smiling now, as much as she tried, she couldn’t help but be amused by him. Even if he was an idiot.

“Exactly.” He clapped her on the shoulder as she headed toward the gate.

They walked up the stairs together, Jack still keeping a step behind her to maintain what little dignity he had left.

She paused before stepping into the event horizon, remembering exactly what it was that she saw in him. “Nice ass. Sir.”

Jack grinned as she disappeared. “Oh yeah,” he murmured. “She wants me.”

One confused General and a lot of sideways glances at his ass greeted him on the other side. “General. It’s good to be back.” Carter was trying not to laugh at him. That always gave him a little ego boost. “We’ll debrief right after we….re-brief, sir.”  He waved a hand at Carter. “After you, Carter.”

The two of them followed Daniel out the door, leaving Teal’c to field Hammond’s questions.

“What in God’s name happened out there, Teal’c? And what is that smell?”

Those questions could wait, thought Teal’c; he had more pressing issues to discuss. “What do you know of Tribbles, General Hammond?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
